In January 1978, the Sex Pistols embarked upon a seven-date tour of America. It was a disaster. The band was pelted with beer cans in Dallas, boycotted in Memphis, and hounded by moral outrage at every stop.
By the time they arrived at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, the band was imploding amidst infighting; Sid Vicious’ spiralling heroin addiction; and a manager orchestrating the drama like some punk-rock puppet master.
Within days, lead singer Johnny Rotten would quit the band. In October of the same year, Sid Vicious would be arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in New York’s Chelsea Hotel. He would die of a heroin overdose just months later, in February 1979. He was 21.
But as the band tore through their final encore in San Francisco, Rotten’s frustration boiled over. Kneeling at the edge of the stage, he stared into the crowd, sneered, and delivered a line that brought down the curtain on punk’s most volatile band and, quite possibly, on the punk movement itself:
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
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